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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


1. Which of the following best explains ‘value for money’ in procurement?
a. Buying a product that is fit for purpose, taking account of the whole-life cost.
b. Buying a product at the cheapest price.
c. Buying a product efficiently.
d. Buying a product effectively.
ANSWER: a

2. Which of the following disciplines is involved in public procurement?


a. Economics.
b. Sociology.
c. Psychology.
d. Biology.
ANSWER: a

3. Which of the following disciplines is involved in public procurement?


a. Psychology.
b. Public administration.
c. Sociology.
d. Chemistry.
ANSWER: b

4. Which of the following disciplines is involved in public procurement?


a. Psychology
b. Biology
c. Public finance
d. Chemistry
ANSWER: c

5. Which of the following countries are not full members of the European Union (EU)?
a. Russia
b. France
c. Slovenia
d. Belgium
ANSWER: a

6. Which of the following countries are not full members of the European Union (EU)?
a. Malta.
b. Canada.
c. Slovenia.
d. Ireland.
ANSWER: b

7. How many European Public Procurement Directives are there?


a. One.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


b. Two.
c. Three.
d. Four.
ANSWER: d

8. European Public Procurement Directives apply to which of the following governmental institutions?
a. The State.
b. Regional and Local Authorities.
c. Bodies governed by public law.
d. All governmental institutions.
ANSWER: d

9. Which of the following best explains ‘central purchasing bodies’?


a. Purchasing organizations based in central Europe.
b. Organizations instituted by member contracting authorities to obtain benefits from co-ordinated purchasing
activities.
c. Organizations of suppliers to public bodies.
d. Organizations which audit public bodies’ purchasing contracts.
ANSWER: b

10. Which of the following does not constitute a ‘formal agreement’?


a. A contract.
b. A purchase order.
c. An invoice.
d. A verbal agreement.
ANSWER: d

11. Which of the following is a principle of public procurement?


a. Value for money.
b. Competitive tendering.
c. Efficiency.
d. Non-discrimination.
ANSWER: d

12. Which of the following is a principle of public procurement?


a. Value for money.
b. Competitive tendering.
c. Proportionality.
d. Efficiency.
ANSWER: c

13. Which of the following is a principle of public procurement?


a. Value for money.
b. Transparency.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


c. Efficiency.
d. Competitive tendering.
ANSWER: b

14. Which of the following is a principle of public procurement?


a. Equality.
b. Competitive tendering.
c. Efficiency.
d. Value for money.
ANSWER: a

15. Which of the following best explains ‘a framework agreement’?


a. An agreement to establish contractual terms such as price.
b. A formal contract.
c. Purchaser rights.
d. Supplier obligations.
ANSWER: a

16. Which of the following best explains ‘a framework agreement’?


a. An agreement to establish contractual payments.
b. An agreement to establish contractual terms such as the quantities envisaged.
c. Purchaser rights.
d. Supplier obligations.
ANSWER: b

17. Which of the following best explains ‘threshold values’?


a. An agreement to establish contractual payments.
b. Minimal contractual terms such as the quantities envisaged.
c. Minimum order quantities for public procurement.
d. Purchasing volumes beyond which public institutions are obliged to follow European legislation when making
purchasing decisions.
ANSWER: d

18. According to the EU Directives on public procurement threshold values, the total value of the lots which are separated
from the total contract should not exceed which of the following percentages of the total contract value?
a. 5%.
b. 10%.
c. 15%.
d. 20%.
ANSWER: d

19. Which activity commences a European tender?


a. An e-mail.
b. A letter.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


c. An advertised contract notice.
d. Word of mouth.
ANSWER: c

20. What is the title of the procurement database of the European Commission?
a. Tender Electronic Daily (TED).
b. Public Purchasing (PP).
c. Tender electronic weekly (TEW).
d. European Purchasing (EP).
ANSWER: a

21. Which of the following best comes before the ‘contract notice’?
a. The contract awards notice.
b. The notification of unsuccessful bidders.
c. The contract evaluation.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: d

22. Which of the following comes immediately before the ‘contract award notice’?
a. The contract notice.
b. The notification of unsuccessful bidders.
c. The contract evaluation.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: a

23. Which of the following comes after the ‘contract notice’?


a. The contract award notice.
b. The notification of unsuccessful bidders.
c. The contract closing date notice.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: c

24. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Open procedure.
b. Termination procedure.
c. Selection procedure.
d. Closed procedure.
ANSWER: a

25. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Innovation partnership.
b. Termination procedure.
c. Selection procedure.
d. Closed procedure.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


ANSWER: a

26. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Design contest.
b. Notification procedure.
c. Selection procedure.
d. Closed procedure.
ANSWER: a

27. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Closed procedure.
b. Notification procedure.
c. Selection procedure.
d. Restricted procedure.
ANSWER: d

28. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Closed procedure.
b. Dynamic purchasing system.
c. Notification procedure.
d. Selection procedure.
ANSWER: b

29. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Closed procedure.
b. The notification to unsuccessful bidders.
c. Competitive procedure with negotiation.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: c

30. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Negotiated procedure with or without prior publication.
b. Notification to unsuccessful bidders.
c. The contract closing date notice.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: a

31. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?


a. Open procedure.
b. Notification to unsuccessful bidders.
c. Competitive dialogue.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: c

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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


32. Which of the following is a European Directives public procurement procedure?
a. Open procedure.
b. Innovation partnership.
c. Competitive tendering.
d. The prior information notice.
ANSWER: b

33. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘open procedure’?
a. Open to companies globally.
b. Every market party within the EU should be able to subscribe to a governmental tender.
c. Restricted to non-EU companies.
d. Open to public bodies only.
ANSWER: b

34. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘restricted procedure’?
a. The procedure with pre-selection.
b. Only EU companies can tender.
c. Only large companies may tender.
d. Only non-EU companies may tender.
ANSWER: a

35. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘design contest’?
a. Tendering organizations submit designs to be ranked by the purchasing organization.
b. Contracts are awarded prior to design being submitted.
c. Submitted designs are judged by a jury of professionals in fields complimentary to the nature of the design.
d. Designs are given to tendering organizations.
ANSWER: c

36. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘competitive procedure with negotiation’?
a. Only one supplier can tender.
b. Contracting authorities can negotiate with suppliers.
c. Submitted tenders are judged by a jury of professionals in fields complimentary to the nature of the design.
d. Suppliers negotiate with each other.
ANSWER: b

37. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘negotiated procedure with or without prior publication’?
a. Contracting authorities do not need to publish a prior notice before negotiating with suppliers.
b. Contracting authorities cannot negotiate with suppliers.
c. Tenders are submitted from suppliers in a sequence according to the suppliers ranking.
d. Suppliers negotiate with each other.
ANSWER: a

38. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘competitive dialogue’?
a. Contracting authorities can negotiate with suppliers on the final supply arrangements.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


b. Detailed specifications from a preferred supplier follow a pre-selection of qualified suppliers.
c. Negotiations take place throughout the supplier selection process.
d. All suppliers are invited to give a presentation followed by questions and answers.
ANSWER: b

39. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘innovation partnership’?
a. A procedure to develop and acquire innovative solutions to problems face by authorities.
b. A Partnership between two tendering suppliers.
c. A new company partnering an established company to bid for contracts.
d. A partnership from two or more EU countries.
ANSWER: a

40. Which of the following best explains public procurement ‘dynamic purchasing system’?
a. A constantly changing purchasing system.
b. A system for ordering non-standard items on an irregular basis.
c. An electronic process for invoicing suppliers.
d. An electronic process facilitating buying standard goods and services.
ANSWER: d

41. Which of the following best explains ‘defining specifications’?


a. Specifications are the input for the consecutive stages of the purchasing process.
b. Standard contractual terms.
c. Purchaser obligations.
d. Order quantities.
ANSWER: a

42. Which of the following best explains ‘proportionality’?


a. Specifications and conditions should be in line with the nature of the assignment and linked to the subject
matter.
b. Costs and risks should be shared between purchaser and supplier.
c. Specifications and conditions should not be in line with the nature of the assignment and not linked to the
subject matter.
d. Specifications and conditions should allocate proportional responsibility between purchaser and suppliers.
ANSWER: a

43. Which of the following best explains ‘supplier selection criteria’?


a. The requirements that the EU will use to select all suppliers.
b. The requirements that the EU will use to select all pre-selected suppliers.
c. The requirements that the contracting authority will use to select all suppliers.
d. The requirements that the contracting authority will use to select all pre-selected suppliers.
ANSWER: d

44. Which of the following best explains ‘supplier award criteria’?


a. Criteria used to evaluate the detailed supplier proposal.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


b. Criteria used to evaluate the initial supplier proposal.
c. Criteria used to evaluate the costs.
d. Criteria used to evaluate the quality.
ANSWER: a

45. Which of the following best explains ‘suitability criteria’?


a. Criteria relating to economic standing.
b. Criteria relating to financial standing.
c. Criteria relating to financial and economic standing and professional ability.
d. Criteria relating to financial and economic standing.
ANSWER: c

46. Which of the following best explains ‘exclusion criteria’?


a. Criteria related to the personal situation of suppliers which prevent contracts being awarded.
b. Exclusive rights to tender.
c. Legal restrictions preventing companies from tendering.
d. Criteria preventing non-EU companies from tendering.
ANSWER: a

47. Which of the following best explains ‘mandatory exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in a criminal organization.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Did not submit bid by the deadline in the tender.
d. Bids over the budget specified.
ANSWER: a

48. Which of the following best explains ‘mandatory exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in child labour.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Did not submit bid by the deadline in the tender.
d. Bids over the budget specified.
ANSWER: a

49. Which of the following best explains ‘mandatory exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in politics.
b. Corruption.
c. Did not submit bid by the deadline in the tender.
d. Bids over the budget specified.
ANSWER: b

50. Which of the following best explains ‘mandatory exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in politics.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Did not submit bid by the deadline in the tender.
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


d. Participation in trafficking human beings.
ANSWER: d

51. Which of the following best explains ‘mandatory exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in politics.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Did not submit bid by the deadline in the tender.
d. Fraud with financial interests in the EU.
ANSWER: d

52. Which of the following best explains ‘mandatory exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in politics.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Money laundering.
d. New companies with no financial records.
ANSWER: c

53. Which of the following best explains ‘optional exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in politics.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Money laundering.
d. Bankruptcy.
ANSWER: d

54. Which of the following best explains ‘optional exclusion criteria’?


a. Participation in politics.
b. Tenders from non-EU companies.
c. Money laundering.
d. Grave professional misconduct.
ANSWER: d

55. Which of the following is an example of optional exclusion criteria?


a. Collusion with other suppliers aimed at distorting competition.
b. Money laundering.
c. Tenders from non-EU companies.
d. Corruption.
ANSWER: a

56. Which of the following is an example of optional exclusion criteria?


a. Corruption.
b. Money laundering.
c. Tenders from non-EU companies.
d. Significant or persistent deficiencies in performance.
ANSWER: d
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement

57. Which of the following is an example of optional exclusion criteria?


a. Serious misrepresentation in supplying required information.
b. Money laundering.
c. Tenders from non-EU companies.
d. Corruption.
ANSWER: a

58. Which of the following is an example of optional exclusion criteria?


a. Corruption.
b. Money laundering.
c. Undue influence on the decision-making process.
d. Participation in politics.
ANSWER: c

59. Which of the following is an example of optional exclusion criteria?


a. Obtaining confidential information leading to advantages in the procurement process.
b. Money laundering.
c. Tenders from non-EU companies.
d. Corruption.
ANSWER: a

60. Which of the following is an example of optional exclusion criteria?


a. Corruption.
b. Money laundering.
c. Not fulfilling obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or taxes.
d. Participation in politics.
ANSWER: c

61. Which of the following the cost savings figure is possible due to European Procurement Directives?
a. Up to 10%.
b. Up to 20%.
c. Up to 30%.
d. Up to 40%.
ANSWER: c

62. As a result of the general EU procurement procedures, contractors are not allowed to do which of the following?
a. Use brand or specific supplier specifications.
b. Use own suppliers.
c. Award contracts to non-EU companies
d. Avoid procurement procedures.
ANSWER: a

63. As a result of the general EU procurement procedures, contractors are not allowed to do which of the following?
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Chapter 6 - Public procurement


a. Avoid procurement procedures.
b. Use own suppliers.
c. Award contract to non-EU companies
d. Impeded free trade and free competition between market parties.
ANSWER: d

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She rose at last. It was time that she should be going. She
stretched out the tired arms upon which she had been lying, looked
at the patient hands which had long lost the beauty her face still
kept, and lifted her eyes to the solemn sky.
“I shall die some day,” she said, passionately. “No one can take
that away from me. Thank Heaven, it is not one of the privileges a
woman forfeits by marrying out of her station.”
Forbes stayed three days longer; restless, wretched days
whenever he thought of himself and his position; sunlit and serene
whenever his facile temperament permitted him to forget them. He
felt that he should be moving on, yet, having stopped, was at a loss
how to proceed. Staying or going seemed equally difficult and
dangerous. He had no precedents to guide his action. Nothing in his
previous life and training had ever fitted him to be a fugitive. He was,
as he often reminded himself, not a fugitive from justice, but from
injustice; which is quite another matter, but after all hardly more
comfortable. He began to suspect that he might have been a fool to
come away, but was too dazed to decide intelligently whether he
should go forward or back. He was still in this undecided frame of
mind on the morning of the third day.
Wilson and his wife performed by turns the duties of telegraph
operator, with the difference that whereas she received by sound, he
took the messages on paper. On the evening of the second day of
Forbes’s stay, Wilson, sitting alone in the office, received a message
from Pueblo that startled him.
“Great Scott!” he said, and looked around to see if his wife was in
sight. She was not, and on reflection he felt thankful. It would be
better not to have her know. There were some things women, even
plucky ones, made a fuss about. They were not fond of seeing
criminals taken, for instance. So he answered the message, and
having made the requisite copy locked that in the office safe. The
long strip of paper, with its lines of dots and dashes, he crumpled
carelessly and dropped into the waste-basket.
The next afternoon Mrs. Wilson, in the process of sweeping out
the room, upset the waste-basket, and the crumpled piece of paper
fell out and rolled appealingly to her feet. There were a dozen
messages on the strip, but the last one riveted her eyes. She read it,
then read it again; returned it to the waste-basket and sat down to
think with folded hands in lap, her white face as inscrutable as the
Sphinx. What should she do? Should she do anything?
The man might be a criminal or he might not. The fact that he was
followed by detectives with papers for his arrest, who might be
expected to arrive on the afternoon train, proved nothing to her mind.
At the same time, criminal or none, if she interfered it might prove a
dangerous experiment for her, and was sure to be a troublesome
one. Why, then, should she interfere?
There was only one reason, but it was a reason rooted in the
dumb depths of her being—the depths that this man’s bearing had
so disturbed. He was of her people; on her side—though it was the
side that had cast her off. The faint, sweet memories of her earliest
years pleaded for him; the enduring bitterness of that later life which
she had lived sometimes forgetfully, sometimes—but this was rare—
prayerfully, sometimes with long-drawn sighs, seldom with tears,
always in silence, fought for him; the inextinguishable class-spirit
fought for him—and fought successfully.
She looked at the clock. It lacked an hour of train-time. What she
did must be done quickly.
She went out to her husband, loafing on the platform.
“I’ve got to go to Connor’s, Jim. There’s no butter and no eggs.”
Wilson looked up carelessly. “All right,” he said.
She went into the back room which served as kitchen and store-
room and provided herself with a basket, into which she put meat
and bread. As she left the station, Wilson came around to the side
and called to her:
“You’ll be back by supper-time, Ellen?”
The woman nodded, not looking back, and plunged on up the
rocky spur.
When she found him, an hour later, Forbes was lying on a sunny
slope indulging in the luxury of a day-dream. He was stretched out at
full length, his arms under his head, the sketch-book that he had not
used lying by his side unopened. For the life of him he could not feel
that his position was serious, and the mountain-air and the sunshine
intoxicated him.
“Once I get clear of this thing,” he was saying to himself, “I’ll come
back here and buy me a ranch. Why should anybody who can live
here want to live anywhere else?”
To him in this pastoral mood appeared the woman. There was that
in her face which made him spring to his feet in vague alarm before
she opened her lips.
“They’re after you,” she said. “You must be moving. Do you know
what you want to do? What was your idea in stopping here? Have
you any plans?”
He shook his head helplessly. “I thought perhaps—Mexico?”
“Mexico! But what you want just now is a place to hide in till they
have given you up and gone along. After that you can think about
Mexico. Come! I’ve heard the whistle. The train is in. You’re all right if
they don’t start to look for you before supper-time, and I hardly think
they will, for they’ll expect you to come in. But if anybody should
stroll out to look over the country, this place is in sight from the knoll
beside the station. Come!”
Stumbling, he ran along beside her.
“I swear to you,” he said between his labored breaths, “I did not do
it. I am not unworthy of your help. But the evidence was damning
and my friends told me to clear out. I may have been a fool to come
—but it is done.”
Her calm face did not change.
“You must not waste your breath,” she warned. “We have two
miles to go, and then I must walk to Connor’s and get back by six
o’clock, or there’ll be trouble.”
They were working their way back toward the station, but going
farther to the east. She explained briefly that their objective point
was the nearest canyon. She knew a place there where any one
would be invisible both from above and below. It was fairly
accessible—“if you are sure-footed,” she warned. Here he might hide
himself in safety for a day or two. She had brought him food. It would
not be comfortable, but it was hardly a question of his comfort.
“You are very good,” said Forbes, simply. “I don’t want to give
myself up now. You are very good,” he repeated, wondering a little
why she should take the pains.
She made no answer, only hastened on.
To Forbes the way seemed long. His feet grew heavy and his head
bewildered. Was this really he, this man who was in flight from
justice and dependent on the chance kindness of a stranger for
shelter from the clutches of the law?
They reached the canyon and began to make their way slowly
down and along its side. The woman led fearlessly over the twistings
of a trail imperceptible to him. He followed dizzily. Suddenly she
turned.
“It is just around this rock that juts out in front. Is your head
steady? It falls off sheer below and the path is narrow.”
“Go on,” he said, and set his teeth.
The path was steep as well as narrow, and the descent below was
sheer and far. Mid-way around the rocks a mist came over his eyes.
He put up his hand, stumbled, fell forward and out, was dimly aware
that he had fallen against his guide.
A crash and cry awoke the echoes of the canyon. Then silence
settled over it again—dead silence—and the night came down.
Their bodies were not found until three days later. When the
Eastern detectives had identified their man they proposed his burial,
but Wilson turned from the place with the muscles of his throat
working with impotent emotion, and a grim look about his mouth that
lifted his lips like those of a snarling beast.
“Carrion! Let it lie,” he said, with so dark a face that the men
followed him silently, saying nothing more, and the two were left lying
upon the ground which had drunk with impartial thirst the current that
oozed from their jagged wounds.
The suspicions of primitive men are of a primitive nature. Those
three days in which nothing had been seen or heard of his wife or
Forbes had been a long agony to Wilson. And now that the end had
come it seemed to him that his basest suspicions were confirmed. To
his restricted apprehension there was but one passion in the world
that could have sent his wife to this stranger’s side, to guard and
save him at her cost. So thinking, it seemed to him that swift justice
had been done.
And that he might not forget, nor let his fierce thoughts of her grow
more tender, the next day when the train had gone eastward and he
was left alone to his desolation he took his brush and laboriously
wrote across the end of the high platform, in great letters for all men
to see and wonder at, the phrase he thought her fitting epitaph:
THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.
And there it still stands, remaining in its stupid, brutal accusation
the sole monument on earth of a woman’s ended life.
HARDESTY’S COWARDICE
I
Straight on before them stretched the street, a wide and
unobstructed way at first, but narrowing a little farther on, where
there were, besides, buildings going up, and great piles of lumber
standing far out in the road, and heaps of sand, and mortar-beds.
Could he possibly get the horses under control before they reached
those cruel lumber piles, where to be thrown meant death or worse?
They were running wildly, and it was down hill all the way. She did
not believe that human strength could do it, not even Neil’s, and he
was as strong as he was tender. She looked down at his hands and
noticed how white the knuckles were, and how the veins stood out,
and then she bent her head that she might not see those fatal
obstructions in their way, and clasped her hands as tightly as her
lips. She found herself senselessly repeating, over and over, as if it
were a charm, “Broad is the way ... that leadeth to destruction.”
It was a June morning, cool and sweet. If ever, life is dear in June.
Her eyes fell on the great bunch of white roses in her lap. He had put
them in her hands just as they were starting, and then had bent
suddenly and left a quick kiss on the hands. It was only the other day
he had told her that he had never, from the very first hour they met,
seen her hands without longing to fill them with flowers. Would she
be pleased to take notice, now that he possessed the right, he meant
to exercise it?
Poor roses! Must they be crushed and mangled, too? She did not
like the thought of scarlet stains upon their whiteness, and with some
wild thought of saving them—for were they not his roses?—she flung
them with a sudden gesture into the street.
“Oh, Christ!” she cried, voicelessly, “spare both of us—or neither!”
It was just then that the horses swerved and reared, the carriage
struck something in the road and tilted sharply to the right. She
clutched the side involuntarily and kept her seat. When, a second
later, the carriage had righted itself, and the horses, more terrified
still and now wholly uncontrolled, were dashing forward again, the
place beside her was vacant, and the reins were dragging on the
ground.
She shut her eyes and waited. It was not long to wait. There came
a crash, a whirl, and then unconsciousness.
The evening papers contained an account of the fortunate escape
from serious disaster of Mr. Neil Hardesty and Miss Mildred Fabian,
who were on their way to a field meeting of the Hambeth Historical
Society when the young blooded horses Mr. Hardesty was driving
took fright at a bonfire at the corner of State and Market Streets, and
started to run. Owing to the sharp down-grade at this point, their
driver was unable to control them. After keeping their course in a
mad gallop down State Street for a quarter of a mile, the carriage
struck an obstruction, tipped, and Mr. Hardesty was thrown out,
being severely bruised, but sustaining no serious injuries. The
horses continued running wildly for two blocks more, when one of
them ran against a lamp-post and was knocked down, upsetting the
carriage and throwing Miss Fabian out. She was picked up
unconscious, but beyond a cut on the head was also fortunately
uninjured. Mr. Hardesty and Miss Fabian were to be congratulated
upon the results of the runaway, as such an accident could hardly
occur once in a hundred times without more serious, and probably
fatal, consequences.
It was some two weeks later that the family physician, consulting
with Mrs. Fabian in the hall, shook his head and said he did not
understand it; there was no apparent reason why Miss Mildred
should not have rallied immediately from the accident. The shock to
her nervous system had doubtless been greater than he had at first
supposed. Still, she had been in sound health, and there seemed no
sufficient cause for her marked weakness and depression. He would
prepare a tonic and send it up.
Meeting Neil Hardesty, himself an unfledged medical student,
entering the house, the doctor stopped to observe:
“You must try to rouse your fiancée a little. Can’t you cheer her up,
Hardesty? She seems very much depressed nervously. Perhaps it is
only natural after such a close shave as you had. I did not care to
look death in the face at that age. It sometimes startles young people
and happy ones.”
Neil shook his head with an anxious look.
“It is not that,” he said, “for she is half an angel already. But I will
do my best,” and he passed on through the broad, airy, darkened
hall to the high veranda at the back of the house, where he knew he
should find her at that hour.
The veranda overlooked the garden, blazing just then with the
flowers of early July. She was lying languidly in her sea-chair; there
were books around her, but she had not been reading; and work, but
she had not been sewing. One hand was lifted shading her face. The
lines around her mouth were fixed as if she were in pain.
He came forward quickly and knelt beside the chair. He was
carrying some brilliant clusters of scarlet lilies, and he caught the
small and rather chilly hand, and held it over them as if to warm it in
their splendid flame.
“Do you know that you look cold?” he demanded. “I want you to
look at these and hold them till you are warmed through and through.
What an absurd child it is to look so chilly in July!”
She raised her eyes and let them rest on him with a sudden
radiant expression of satisfaction.
“It is because you are so unkind as to go away—occasionally,” she
remarked. “Do I ever look cold or unhappy or dissatisfied while you
are here?”
“Once or twice in the last two weeks you have been all of that.
Sweetheart, I must know what it means. Don’t you see you must tell
me? How can one do anything for you when one doesn’t know what
is the matter? And I am under orders to see that you get well
forthwith. The doctor has given you up—to me!”
He was startled when, instead of the laughing answer for which he
looked, she caught her breath with half a sob.
“Must I tell you?” she said. “Neil, I do not dare! When you are here
I know it is not so. It is only when you are away from me that the
hideous thought comes. And I fight it so! It is only because I am tired
with fighting it that I do not get strong.”
“Dear, what can you mean?”
She shook her head.
“It is too horrible, and you would never forgive me, though I know it
cannot be true. Oh, Neil, Neil, Neil!”
“Mildred, this is folly. I insist that you tell me at once.” His tone had
lost its tender playfulness and was peremptory now. “Don’t you see
that you are torturing me?” he said.
She looked at him helplessly.
“That day,” she said, reluctantly, “when the carriage tipped and you
went out, I thought—I thought you jumped. Neil, don’t look so; I knew
you could not have done it, and yet I can’t get rid of the thought, and
it tortures me that I can think it—of you. Oh, I have hurt you!”
He was no longer kneeling beside her, but had risen and was
leaning against one of the pillars of the veranda, looking down at her
with an expression she had never dreamed of seeing in his eyes
when they rested on her face. He was white to the lips.
“You thought that? You have thought it these two weeks?”
“I tell you it is torture. Neil, say you did not, and let me be at rest.”
“And you ask me to deny it? You?” His voice was very bitter. “I
wonder if you know what you are saying?”
“Neil, Neil, say you did not!”
He set his teeth.
“Never!”
He broke the silence which followed by asking, wearily, at last:
“What was your idea in telling me this, Mildred? Of course you
knew it was the sort of thing that is irrevocable.”
“I knew nothing except that I must get rid of the thought.”
“Can’t you imagine what it is to a man to be charged with
cowardice?”
“I charge nothing. But if you would only deny it!”
“Oh, this is hopeless!” he said, with an impatient groan. “It is
irremediable. If I denied it, you would still doubt; but even if you did
not, I could never forget that you had once thought me a coward.
There are some things one may not forgive.”
Silence again.
“And my—my wife must never have doubted me.”
She raised her eyes at last.
“If you are going, pray go at once,” she said. “I am too weak for
this.”
She said it, but she did not mean it. After all, it was the one
impossible thing on earth that anything should come between them.
Surely she could not alter the course of two lives by five minutes of
unguarded hysterical speech or a week or two of unfounded fretting.
But he took up his hat, and turned it in his hands.
“As you wish,” he said, coldly, and then “Good-morning,” and was
gone.

II
“I think that is all,” said the hurried, jaded doctor to the Northern
nurse. “The child is convalescent—you understand about the
nourishment?—and you know what to do for Mrs. Leroy? I shall bring
some one who will stay with her husband within the hour.”
Outside was the glare of sun upon white sand—a pitiless sun,
whose rising and setting seemed the only things done in due order in
all the hushed and fever-smitten city. Within was a shaded green
gloom and the anguished moaning of a sick woman.
Mildred Fabian, alone with her patients and the one servant who
had not deserted the house, faced her work and felt her heart rise
with exultation—a singular, sustaining joy that never yet had failed
her in the hour of need. The certainty of hard work, the
consciousness of danger, the proximity of death—these acted
always upon her like some subtle stimulant. If she had tried to
explain this, which she did not, she would perhaps have said that at
no other time did she have such an overwhelming conviction of the
soul’s supremacy as in the hours of human extremity. And this
conviction, strongest in the teeth of all that would seem most
vehemently to deny it, was to her nothing less than intoxicating.
She was not one of the women to whom there still seems much
left in life when love is gone. To be sure, she had the consolations of
religion and a certain sweet reasonableness of temperament which
prompted her to pick up the pieces after a crash, and make the most
of what might be left. But she was obliged to do this in her own way.
She was sorry, but she could not do it in her mother’s way.
When she told her family that her engagement was at an end, that
she did not care to explain how the break came, and that if they
meant to be kind they would please not bother her about it, she knew
that her mother would have been pleased to have her take up her
old life with a little more apparent enthusiasm for it than she had ever
shown before. To be a little gayer, a little more occupied, a little
prettier if possible, and certainly a little more fascinating—that was
her mother’s idea of saving the pieces. But Mildred’s way was
different, and after dutifully endeavoring to carry out her mother’s
conception of the conduct proper to the circumstances with a dismal
lack of success, she took her own path, which led her through a
training school for nurses first, and so, ultimately, to Jacksonville.
The long day wore slowly into night. The doctor had returned very
shortly with a man, whether physician or nurse she did not know,
whom he left with Mr. Leroy. The little maid, who had been dozing in
the upper hall, received some orders concerning the preparation of
food which she proceeded to execute. The convalescent child rested
well. The sick woman passed from the first to the second stage of
the disease and was more quiet. The doctor came again after
nightfall. He looked at her charges wearily, and told Mildred that the
master of the house would not rally.
“He is my friend, and I can do no more for him,” he said, almost
with apathy.
The night passed as even nights in sick-rooms will, and at last it
began to grow toward day. The nurse became suddenly conscious of
deadly weariness and need of rest. She called the servant and left
her in charge, with a few directions and the injunction to call her at
need, and then stole down the stairs to snatch, before she rested,
the breath of morning air she craved.
As she stood at the veranda’s edge in the twilight coolness and
twilight hush watching the whitening sky, there came steps behind
her, and turning, she came face to face with Neil Hardesty. She
stared at him with unbelieving eyes.
“Yes, it is I,” he said.
“You were with Mr. Leroy?” she asked. “Are you going?”
“My work is over here,” he answered, quietly. “I am going to send
—some one else.”
She bent her head a second’s space with the swift passing
courtesy paid death by those to whom it has become a more familiar
friend than life itself, then lifted it, and for a minute they surveyed
each other gravely.
“This is like meeting you on the other side of the grave,” she said.
“How came you here? I thought you were in California.”
“I thought you were in Europe.”
“I was for awhile, but there was nothing there I wanted. Then I
came back and entered the training school. After this is over I have
arranged to join the sisterhood of St. Margaret. I think I can do better
work so.”
“Let me advise you not to mistake your destiny. You were surely
meant for the life of home and society, and can do a thousand-fold
more good that way.”
“You do not know,” she answered, simply. “I am very happy in my
life. It suits me utterly. I have never been so perfectly at peace.”
“But it will wear you out,” he murmured.
She looked at him out of her great eyes, surprisedly. It was a look
he knew of old.
“Why, I expect it to,” she answered.
There was a little silence before she went on, apparently without
effort:
“I am glad to come across you again, for there is one thing I have
wanted to say to you almost ever since we parted, and it has grieved
me to think I might never be able to say it. It is this. While I do not
regret anything else, and while I am sure now that it was best for
both of us—or else it would not have happened—I have always been
sorry that the break between us came in the way it did. I regret that.
It hurts me still when I remember of what I accused you. I am sure I
was unjust. No wonder you were bitter against me. I have often
prayed that that bitterness might pass out of your soul, and that I
might know it. So—I ask your forgiveness for my suspicion. It will
make me happier to know you have quite forgiven me.”
He did not answer. She waited patiently.
“Surely”—she spoke with pained surprise—“surely you can forgive
me now?”
“Oh, God!”
She looked at his set face uncomprehending. Why should it be
with such a mighty effort that he unclosed his lips at last? His voice
came forced and hard.
“I—I did it, Mildred. I was the coward that you thought me. I don’t
know what insensate fear came over me and took possession of me
utterly, but it was nothing to the fear I felt afterwards—for those two
weeks—that you might suspect me of it. And when I knew you did I
was mad with grief and anger at myself, and yet—it seems to me
below contempt—I tried to save my miserable pride. But I have
always meant that you should know at last.”
She looked at him with blank uncomprehension.
“I did it,” he repeated, doggedly, and waited for the change he
thought to see upon her face. It came, but with a difference.
“You—you did it?” for the idea made its way but slowly to her mind.
“Then”—with a rush of feeling that she hardly understood, and an
impetuous, tender gesture—“then let me comfort you.”
It was the voice of the woman who had loved him, and not of any
Sister of Charity, however gracious, that he heard again, but he
turned sharply away.
“God forbid,” he said, and she shrank from the misery in his voice;
“God forbid that even you should take away my punishment. Don’t
you see? It is all the comfort I dare have, to go where there is danger
and to face death when I can, till the day comes when I am not
afraid, for I am a coward yet.”
She stretched her hands out toward him blindly. I am afraid that
she forgot just then all the boasted sweetness of her present life, her
years of training, and her coming postulancy at St. Margaret’s, as
well as the heinousness of his offence. She forgot everything, save
that this was Neil, and that he suffered.
But all that she, being a woman and merciful, forgot, he, being a
man and something more than just, remembered.
“Good-by, and God be with you,” he said.
“Neil!” she cried. “Neil!”
But his face was set steadfastly toward the heart of the stricken
city, and he neither answered nor looked back.
The future sister of St. Margaret’s watched him with a heart that
ached as she had thought it could never ache again. All the hard-
won peace of her patient years, which she thought so secure a
possession, had gone at once and was as though it had not been;
for he, with all his weaknesses upon him, was still the man she
loved.
“Lord, give him back to me!” she cried, yet felt the cry was futile.
Slowly she climbed the stairs again, wondering where was the
courage and quiet confidence that had sustained her so short a time
ago.
Was it true, then, that heaven was only excellent when earth could
not be had? She was the coward now. In her mind there were but
two thoughts—the desire to see him again, and a new, appalling fear
of death.
She re-entered the sick-room where the girl was watching her
patients with awed eyes.
“You need not stay here,” she said, softly. “I cannot sleep now. I
will call you when I can.”
“THE HONOR OF A GENTLEMAN”
I
Because there was so little else left him to be proud of, he clung
the more tenaciously to his pride in his gentle blood and the spotless
fame of his forefathers. There was no longer wealth nor state nor
position to give splendor to the name, but this was the less sad in
that he himself was the sole survivor of that distinguished line. He
was glad that he had no sisters—a girl should not be brought up in
sordid, ignoble surroundings, such as he had sometimes had to
know; as for brothers, if there had been two of them to make the fight
against the world shoulder to shoulder, life might have seemed a
cheerier thing; but thus far he had gotten on alone. And the world
was not such an unkindly place, after all. Though he was a thousand
miles away from the old home, in this busy Northwestern city where
he and his were unknown, he was not without friends; he knew a few
nice people. He had money enough to finish his legal studies; if there
had not been enough, he supposed he could have earned it
somehow; he was young and brave enough to believe that he could
do anything his self-respect demanded of him. If it sometimes asked
what might seem to a practical world fantastic sacrifices at his
hands, was he not ready to give them? At least, had he not always
been ready before he met Virginia Fenley?
She reminded him of his mother, did Virginia, though no two
women in the world were ever fundamentally more different.
Nevertheless, there was a likeness between the little pearl-set
miniature which he cherished, showing Honora Le Garde in the
prime of her beauty, and this girl who looked up at him with eyes of
the self-same brown. Surely, Virginia should not be held responsible
for the fact that a slender, graceful creature with yellow hair and
dark-lashed hazel eyes, with faint pink flushes coming and going in
her cheeks, and the air of looking out at the world with indifference
from a safe and sheltered distance, was Roderick Le Garde’s ideal
of womanhood, and that he regarded her, the representative of the
type, as the embodiment of everything sweetest and highest in
human nature. Virginia’s physique, like Roderick’s preconceptions of
life and love and honor, was an inheritance, but a less significant
one; it required an effort to live up to it, and Virginia was not fond of
effort.
His feeling for her was worship. Virginia had not been looking on
at the pageant (Roderick would have called it a pageant) of society
very long, but she was a beautiful girl and a rich one; therefore she
had seen what called itself love before.
As an example of what a suitor’s attitude should be, she preferred
Roderick’s expression of devotion to that of any man she knew. He
made her few compliments, and those in set and guarded phrase;
except on abstract topics, his speech with her was restrained to the
point of chilliness; even the admiration of his eyes was controlled as
they met hers. But on rare occasions the veil dropped from them,
and then—Virginia did not know what there was about these
occasions that she should find them so fascinating; that she should
watch for them and wait for them, and even try to provoke them, as
she did.
Worship is not exactly the form of sentiment of which
hopelessness can be predicated, but Roderick was human enough
to wish that the niche in which his angel was enshrined might be in
his own home. He let her see this one day in the simplicity of his
devotion.
“Not that I ask for anything, you understand,” he added, hastily. “I
could not do that. It is only that I would give you the knowledge that I
love you, as—as I might give you a rose to wear. It honors the flower,
you see,” he said, rather wistfully.
She lifted her eyes to his, and he wondered why there should flash
across his mind a recollection of the flowers she had worn yesterday,
a cluster of Maréchal Niels that she had raised to her lips once or
twice, kissing the golden petals. She made absolutely no answer to
his speech, unless the faintest, most evanescent of all her faint
smiles could be called an answer. But she was not angry, and she
gave him her hand at parting.
In spite of her silence she thought of his words. The little that she
had to say upon the subject she said to her father as they were
sitting before the library fire that evening.
John Fenley was a prosperous lumberman, possessed of an
affluent good nature which accorded well with his other surroundings
in life. Virginia was his only child, and motherless. She could not
remember that her father ever refused her anything in his life; and
certainly he had never done so while smoking his after-dinner cigar.
“Papa,” she began, in her pretty, deliberate way—“papa, Roderick
Le Garde is in love with me.”
Her father looked up at her keenly. She was not blushing, and she
was not confused. He watched a smoke-ring dissolve, then
answered, comfortably,
“Well, there is nothing remarkable about that.”
“That is true,” assented Virginia. “The remarkable thing is that I like
him—a little.” Her eyes were fixed upon the fire. There was a pause
before she went on. “I have never liked any of them at all before, as
you know very well. I never expect to—very much. Papa, you afford
me everything I want; can you afford me Roderick Le Garde?”
“Do you know what you are asking, Virginia, or why?” he said,
gravely.
“I have thought it over, of course. Couldn’t you put him in charge at
one of the mills or somewhere on a comfortable number of
thousands a year? Of course I can’t starve, you know, and frocks
cost something.”
“My daughter is not likely to want for frocks,” said John Fenley,
frowning involuntarily. “You did not take my meaning. I wish your
mother were here, child.”
“I am sufficiently interested, if that is what you mean,” said Virginia,
still tranquilly. “He is different, papa; and I am tired of the jeunesse
dorée. Perhaps it is because I am so much dorée myself that they
bore me. Roderick has enthusiasms and ideals; I am one of them; I
like it. You, papa, love me for what I am. It is much more exciting to
be loved for what one is not.”
Her father knit his brows and smoked in silence for a few minutes.
Virginia played with the ribbons of her pug.
“Marylander, isn’t he?”
“Something of the sort; I forget just what.”
“H’m!”
“Le Garde isn’t a business man,” John Fenley said, at length.
“Isn’t he?” asked Virginia, politely smothering a yawn.
“Is he? You know enough about it to know how important it is that
any man who is to work into my affairs, and ultimately to take my
place, should know business and mean business, Virgie. It is a long
way from poverty to wealth, but a short one from wealth to poverty.”
“Yes,” said Virginia, “I know; but I also know enough about it to be
sure that I could manage the business if it became necessary. You
and I are both business men, dear. Let us import a new element into
the family.”
Fenley laughed proudly. “By Jove! I believe you could do it!” A little
further silence; then, “So your heart is set on this, daughter?”
“Have I a heart?” asked Virginia, sedately, rising and leaning an
elbow on the mantel as she held up one small, daintily slippered foot
to the blaze.

II
Long afterward he used to wonder how it had ever come to pass—
that first false step of his, the surrender of his profession, and so of
his liberty. Before middle life a man sometimes forgets the imperious
secret of the springs that moved his youthful actions. In reality, the
mechanism of his decision was very simple.
“How can I give up my profession?” he asked Virginia.
She smiled up into his eyes, her own expressing a divine
confidence. “But how can you give up me?”
Though his doubts were not thereby laid to rest, the matter was
practically settled, and it was understood between them that he was
to accept her father’s unnecessarily liberal offer, and take his place
in John Fenley’s business as his own son might have done. This
may have been unwise, but it was not unnatural, and if there was
any unwisdom in the proceeding, it was apparent to no eyes but
Roderick’s own. Other people said what other people always say
under such circumstances—that young Le Garde was in luck; that he
would have a “soft snap” of it as John Fenley’s son-in-law; that he
had shown more sagacity in feathering his own nest than could have
been expected of such an impractical young fellow. They did not
understand his chill reserve when congratulated on this brilliant bit of
success in life. If they had spoken of his good fortune in being loved
by Virginia, that was something a man could understand. The gods
might envy Virginia’s lover, but that he, Roderick Le Garde, should
be congratulated on becoming John Fenley’s son-in-law was
intolerable.
He by no means pretended to scorn money, however, and he felt
as strongly as did Fenley that Virginia must have it. Luxury was her
natural atmosphere—any woman’s perhaps, but surely hers. Other
men sacrificed other things for the women that they loved. He gave
up his proud independence and his proper work, and was sublimely
sure that Virginia understood what the sacrifice cost him.
But it was true that he was not a business man by nature, and his
first few years in John Fenley’s service were not the exacting drill
which would have given him what he lacked. Although he
conscientiously endeavored to carry his share of the burden and do
well what fell to him to do, the fact was that John Fenley was a great
deal too energetic and too fond of managing his own affairs to give
up any duties to another which he could possibly perform for himself.
Thus Roderick’s various positions were always more or less of
sinecures as far as responsibility was concerned, and he had a large
margin of leisure as well as a sufficient amount of money to devote

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